


Eye to Eye

by BaratheonBabe



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gendrya - Freeform, axgweek, march:shoes, monthly prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 01:25:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1286011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaratheonBabe/pseuds/BaratheonBabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arya Stark is newly, and secretly very unhappily engaged. She meets Gendry, and outlaw from the south after she is separated from her sister in the neck and is forced to make her own way home. On her own, she gets to see a side of the country she’s never had the opportunity to observe before and falls in love with the freedom she feels. Arya is presented with a choice:   she may have her duty, the security of her home and rank and a family that loves her, or the freedom and adventure she desires, complete with a man ready to walk her out the door. (for the march shoes monthly prompt from aryaxgendryweek)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Arya sat across from with Sansa in the wheelhouse. It was modest and small, but comfortable enough.

“You don’t seem happy…” Sansa observed.

Arya shrugged the comment off with a weak smile “I’m fine.”

“Would you be happier out riding? You don’t have too keep me company. We can stop the carriage.”

Arya shook her head “No that’s alright, I’m not in the mood.”

“Not in the mood for Riding? Arya you love riding in the vanguard.”

She shrugged.

Sansa had a look on her face as if she wished she could keep from pressing her, in the end she gave in “Arya...it just seems like such a good match, but I’m sure father would never make you. Gods know there isn’t any reason too. The Reed’s are as steadfast as stone.”

“No really,” Arya reassured her “There’s no one I’d rather marry.”

Sansa smiled with her hands over her heart “That’s so sweet...Do you love him? Already?”

Arya shook her head “I’m sure I will though, like Mother.”

“Do you find him handsome?” 

“He’s not NOT handsome or anything…”

She wrinkled her nose “Is it the swamps then? I wouldn't want to live in the swamps.”

She almost laughed then “No it’s not the swamps.”

“It is a strange little place isn't it? I’m glad to be going home. A moving castle though, you have to admit that’s marvelous.”

Arya nodded “It is isn't it?”

“So be happy! You like the smelly old swamp, and your smelly old Jojen-”

She giggled at that. 

“Tell me what is wrong, hmm?”

“Nothing is wrong,” Arya lied “I’m just tired. I hope we get to the inn soon.”

That was half the truth of it anyway. Arya felt tired, from her body all the way to her heart. What it came down to was Arya didn't feel like herself anymore.

The carriage stopped suddenly and the horses made a loud whinny. There was sudden shouting, but before Arya could poke her head out of the window to look ahead the wheelhouse accelerated violently. Sansa clung on to her and out the window she no saw men fighting, she heard swords clashing.

She made out the Sigil of the Kraken. Ironmen.

The men thinned away and were replaced by trees, but she could still hear them in the distance. 

The carriage stopped and Arya pulled Sansa out immediately unsheathing a dagger she kept at her ankle. Once out in the forest she saw they were only accompanied by sir Jory, who was unfastening the horses from the carriage hurriedly.

“What do the Ironborn want here in the neck?” she asked before rushing back into the carriage to fetch something. 

“Bad timing on our part I wager. We are between the Saltspear and Moat Cailin. They want Moat Cailin. Lady Sansa come here.”

She heard her sister galloping away “Arya! There’s no time!”

She opened the correct chest, and needle and its sheath were nestled under her dresses. She tied it off around her waist quickly, hopping back down “Sorry Ser Jory.”

He didn't say anything further and hoisted her up onto one of the horses.

“Follow your sister, don’t stop riding until you get to barrowton.”

“You’ll follow?”

“Yes! Go!”

Arya tangled her fingers in the horses mane and tried to resist digging her legs into it’s haunches for lack of a saddle. She rode fast through the dark woods, but could not see her sister ahead of her. 

“Sansa!” she called out, but to no response. She decided shouting anymore would be unwise as it might lead someone to follow her.

She’d lost Ser Jory immediately, and wondered whether he’d told her he was to follow only to reassure her, and instead went back to stop anyone following.

Finally she saw that she was almost out of the woods, and Sansa riding far ahead where there were no more trees. 

Something struck her in the front of the head however, and she fell to the ground. 


	2. Chapter 2

Arya awoke at the edge of a dark wood, lying on her back in the twigs and leaves, her head throbbing. 

She stood, dizzily at first but then she found her footing and began to walk up the grassy hill where she’d seen her sister fleeing the night before. Now it was early morning and the sun rose to her left. She was heading north. 

“Barrowton…” she repeated. 

It might not be safe in Barrowton anymore, she observed. If Pyke was raiding, then there was a fork of the saltspear that would take them straight into Barrowton. Surely if Sansa had made it there, she would be fleeing north to Winterfell already.

She contemplated going back and hiding in those woods again. In the barrowland plains she would have nowhere to hide if she were spotted.

Should she redirect her course east and find the kings road, or should she stay away from it? She wasn't even sure she had kept her course North and made it past Fever. Was she still in the Neck? Her stomach growled. She was hungry to boot.

She decided, east. After all, if she thought she was walking North when she was really going south she might walk straight back to the raiding party. At least she knew which way was east, and SOMEONE would be on the Kings Road. 

She walked away from the rising sun until she found her way to the road, and a sign directing her north. It also said there was a village close by, no place Arya had ever heard of. She took off her shoes now as her feet were killing her, and walked. 

Over a hill she came upon a small group of men resting on the side of the road. Arya wasn't optimistic about it, but there was no avoiding them anyhow. 

“I don’t suppose any of you could tell me how much farther it is to the village?”

“About 15 miles mi’lady,” one of them offered politely. 

“Thank you,” that was surprising. 

“Woah woah, wait a minute-” another said throwing down a canteen “What’s a lady doing walking barefoot up the kings road?”

“I was separated from my party,” she replied. 

“Have you got any money?”

She sighed “I haven’t,” she sat down her shoes “You can have these if you like, I don’t need them. My jewelry as well.”

“I’d rather have that sword.”

She froze and shook her head “You will not have this sword.”

The man began to walk towards her, and she un-sheathed needle quick as lightning. The others hooted.

The man unsheathed his own sword which had been slung across his back. A two handed iron great-sword. 

She quirked an eyebrow “Compensating for something?”

He swung his sword in slow motions, it was a heavy blade, and it was all you could do to move it. It was not hard to swerve out of the way of the blow and ,before he had time to swing again, move in close plunging needle through his heart. 

She shoved him, and he slid off of the blade onto the ground. 

“She killed him! She killed Willum!”

They rallied up now, not so brave as to send one man at a time to deal with one woman. 

A rider galloped up behind her from down the road and all the men seemed apprehensive. 

She turned about, not understanding. They were four men, four men who were so eager to take all of her things, maybe rape her, probably kill her and now ONE man did nothing but stand behind her and suddenly they weren't so sure.

The rider looked down at her, bloody, barefoot and bruised with a corpse at her feet and a bravosi style sword in hand.

She cleaned the blood off her sword in the fabric of her skirt, which was embroidered with golden leaves, before returning it to it’s sheath. It was easy enough to see what had happened. 

He took the short hammer that was slung across his back in his hand “Are you going to clear off?” he asked the men “Or are we going to have a problem?”

The men charged forward foolishly. The man on horseback rode between two of them, and knocked one in the teeth, then turned on a dime and caught the other, planting the spiked side of the hammer into the top of his skull. 

The other two made it past, and Arya ducked the blow of a rusty short sword before slipping her sword through another heart. 

The rider pursued the last man, but he dodged the swing of his hammer and pulled the man from his horse. 

Arya rushed forward to protect him, but the fourth man simply climbed up onto the riders horse and began to gallop away.

“Hey!” The rider shouted after him “Hey, at least throw down my damn helmet! You can’t sell it! Everyone will know who you got it from!”

To her surprise the fourth man obliged, and threw the Man's helmet into the dirt. 

He ran a hand sown his face with a groan, and upon standing up out of the dust the man walked like it pained him, seeming to have hurt his leg on the fall down. 

Arya picked up her shoes and offered him an arm to help him walk but he jerked away and shook his head “You’re trouble, that’s what you are.”

“You didn’t have to help me.”

“Yes I did,” he said stooping down to pick up his bulls head helmet by the horn.

“No, you didn’t. You could have left me to die. I didn’t ask for your help.”

“You needed it.”

“So? Doesn't mean you have to give me any.”

“You know that may be how you nobles behave, but where I come, my people we help each other.”

“Who are your people?”

He shot her a wary glance back “The common folk.”

“Oh the common people!” she retorted “You know I met some nice common people on the kings road here a little while ago.”

He groaned again.

“I offered them my shoes and my jewelry, and they still thought to take my sword from me. I’d wager that’s not all they aimed to take wouldn't you?” 

“You know usually when someone saves your life you thank them.”

She shrugged and said jokingly “I’m not so sure I couldn't have taken them all.”

He laughed and shook his head “Don’t get ahead of yourself...I can’t believe I lost my horse.”

“You stole that gelding in the first place!” she retorted “He had a Riverrun brand! That’s a hanging offence you know.”

He rolled his eyes “Are you going to have me hanged now? Is that the thanks I get?”

“My point is you lost my grandfathers horse, not yours.”

“Oh it would be YOUR grandfathers. Seven hells.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You’re just all the same,” he complained “you just take everything and call it yours. You leave nothing for anyone else. You can’t even stand each other having anything! You take your banner-men and you fight each other over every scrap of land. It’s just take take take, theirs no give with you people.”

Arya shouted back at him “When I offered you help you refused it!” 

The man sighed and stopped limping up the road. He gave Arya a pained look before reaching out an arm in defeat. 

Arya let the arm wrap about her shoulder and helped the limping man up the road “What’s your name?”

“Ser Gendry of Hollow Hill.”

She scoffed. 

“Yeah, yeah. What’s your name?”

She looked up The Kings Road “Ro-” she lied.

He scrunched up his face “Ro?”

“From Rowan.”

“Look, I’m not giving you some fake name.”

“Are too. You aren't a knight.”

“Maybe not like any Knights you've met in your big castle wherever it is but I am one. That’s my name, it’s a good name. I wasn't born to it, I earned it.”

“Oh like you earned that horse?”

“I stole your Grandpa’s horse fair and square. So are you a Tully?”

“No my Mother is. My mother is Lady Catelyn and I am Arya of house Stark.”

“Oh, them up in Winterfell?”

She nodded “Don’t put so much weight on your foot. You’re going to make it worse.”

“Well how am I meant to move?”

“Just lean on me more.”

He obeyed and they crept for a while up the kings road before stopping to eat the food she’d stolen from the dead man and drink from his flask. It was some horrible hard liquor, not the watered wine she’d been hoping for in her thirst.

“Here,” she said passing him the flask “That will do yours leg some good.”

He took a swig and tried to pull the boot off of his foot. It would not budge at first but came off with some stubborn pulling, and another swig. 

“Looks a bit swollen,” Arya commented between bites of shredded dried meat.

“I don’t guess you know anything about healing?”

She shook her head “I can cut a man’s throat, I wouldn't know how to sew it back up again, at least not straight. I could never sew straight. Anyway, I reckon you should just keep off of it for a while.”

“Where does a Lady learn to kill anyhow?”

“I had a Braavosi dancing master for a long time. His name was Syrio. Never actually had to kill anyone before today…” she reached for the liquor back and drank. 

“You get used to it,” he replied. 

“Bullshit. It’s not like I feel bad for the bastards or anything. It’s just seeing it, feeling someone go limp under your bloodied hands. It’s not pleasant.”

“You don’t feel bad at all?”

“I can’t help but hate someone who’s trying to hurt me. I’m glad they died. I wish they’d all died.”

He huffed.

She turned her face squarely to him “They aimed to hurt me, and I wish they all died. I wish I could have killed every one of them.”

He met her gaze “Bullshit.”

She stared at him “...Could you come with me north to Winterfell?”

“What?”

“I need to get back home. I could pay you, I could even get you a new horse to replace the one you stole.”

“I’ve got a bad leg though, and how come you can’t just go on your own? You seem to be able to handle yourself alright.”

Arya turned her head to the side “Oh please, as if I’m not a walking target. Men respect other men more than they respect women. I just need people to be under the impression that someone in close proximity with a cock thinks they own me and they might just leave me alone.”

“Seven hells, that’s not very ladylike.”

“As for your leg we’ll find someone to make you a crutch or something. Come on it’s honest money.”

“I don’t know what makes you think honest money is better than any other kind to someone like me. How much are we talking about anyway.”

“Well I’d say my life is worth a lot to me. What do you think is fair?”

“Well it’s almost a hundred and fifty leagues north...that’s at least worth a stag for every league, and a new horse that is.”

“Pfft,” Arya shrugged “I can probably get you ten gold dragons.”

“...Ten gold dragons? I’ve never even seen ten gold dragons, and your lord father has ten to throw away?”

“It’s not to throw away! I’m kind of the favorite.”

He laughed “Is that so?”

She nodded knocking back another swig of that horrible sauce and joked “He’d probably only pay about half that for my sister.”

“Alright, you have a deal. I’ll help you get north to Winterfell.”

Just then a turnip cart with a jackass dragging it along the kings road. 

“Hey!” Arya called out to the old couple at the head of it “Could we ride into the village with you for a couple of coppers?”


	3. Chapter 3

Arya and Gendry rode with the turnips northward and finished off their lunch and half their dead mans canteen before reaching the village around noon. 

Arya found herself some leather greaves, a good pair of lizard-lion boots, a leather strip too tie her hair back with, and a leather and fur doublet. She traded away her bloodied golden gown for these things, as well as some provisions. Her golden circlet went on two horses and a silver stag to put in her purse. As promised, she got Gendry’s crutch commissioned from the man who served as their local craftsman.

Usually he made stools and the occasional wobbly table he confessed. 

“Shouldn't be no hard thing to make though,” he said. 

His wife was clever enough to take a crude measurement from Gendry’s arm pit to the earthen floor with some long swamp grass she used to weave baskets. 

There wasn’t an Inn, only small thatch houses but Arya gave her Silver Stag to a family that would let them stay the night and feed them supper. They were said to be the wealthiest family there. 

Gendry sat on the grass stuffed mattress on the floor, with his bad leg stretched out and held the dead man’s canteen. 

Arya played dolls with the families little girl a few feet away throwing him disdainful glances.

Her dolls were made of twigs and leaves and hawk feathers held together by horse hair. The little girl Emma reminded her of Sansa with her head full of red hair. 

They had stew with frogs, snake and wild onion. 

“This is very good,” Arya commented “How far north of the swamps are we?”

“Just thirty miles or so,” a hunter called Boggy said “There's enough game up here I guess, but it’s worth a ride for some snakes.”

“-and the mudfish,” his wife Kathleen added. 

“Mudfish?” Arya asked.

“Catfish,” Gendry informed her. 

“Where are you two heading?” Kathleen asked.

“North,” Arya said simply “I’m hoping we can get there before my brothers wedding.”

“Oh a wedding! How nice.”

“I haven’t even met the girl he’s to marry yet. She’s called Jeyne I think...Yes Jeyne.”

“Ro when are you getting married?” their little girl Emma asked. 

Arya stirred her boiled frogs in their bowl “I just got engaged actually?”

Kathleen pointed a thumb to Gendry with an inquisitive look.

“Oh no, it’s a different boy.”

“I’m her brother,” Gendry volunteered slapping her on the back.

“I was about to say,” Boggy said standing from the table “You could do better.”

Gendry looked to her and whispered bitterly “What’s he got against me?” 

“I think he just means you aren't very sociable,” she said gently, in a way her lady mother might approve of. 

“Very what now?”

“He means you’re an ass,” she said less gently, in a way her lady mother would not at all approve, before digging back into her stew. 

Boggy picked up a well loved lute which was leaned in the corner and began to pluck at it.

Emma began to sing.

Land of bear and land of eagle  
Land that gave us birth and blessing  
Land that called us ever homewards  
We will go home across the mountains

We will go home we will go home  
We will go home across the mountains

“Finish your supper dear,” Kathleen told her. The girl obeyed. 

That night Arya laid her head down on a borrow-grass stuffed mattress hogging the deer pelt blanket. 

“They’re a nice family,” Arya commented “and dinner was good wasn't it?”

“I prefer venison myself. Swamp meat tastes like mud.”

“I guess I don’t mind mud then.”

“Did you play with twig dolls when you were a little girl?”

“No, why?”

He didn't say anything else and Arya went to sleep. 

They next morning Gendry’s crutch was finished and they made ready to go. Arya resolved to visit Emma again in a village she had now heard of called Cranog-twixt. It was not so far from Greywater Watch after all…

“So you’re getting married?” Gendry asked as they they rode in a trot up the kings road “Or was that another lie?”

Arya looked to him sharply at how pointedly he’d said the word lie. She wanted to ask him what his problem with her was but instead only answered “Yes I am engaged, but I will not be married for a long time.”

“Who’s the lucky guy?” he inquired sarcastically. 

“Jojen Reed.”

“That why you were in the neck?”

“Partly, I’d been visiting my sister in the reach. We were coming north for my brother’s wedding and stopped in Greywater watch.”

“All the way in the reach?”

She nodded.

“You’ve been on the road for a long time then?”

“Yes. I love traveling but I feel like I never get to see much of the country hopping from one castle to the next.”

“It’s not a very pretty country.”

“No but it’s beautiful.” 

He shrugged.

“Greywater watch is a bit different though. It doesn't exactly stay in one place. What a better home for someone like me you’d think. His father and my father are good friends, all that nonsense.”

“Sounds like a good match.”

“That’s what I keep hearing, you know what I’d much rather do though?”

“What’s that?”

“I would rather join the silent sisters than ever get married.”

He laughed aloud. 

“I’m serious,” she said “I could travel all over this not so pretty country. Maybe do some work worth doing.” 

“I’d say working with the living is a little more enjoyable.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you there,” she replied “and I’d miss talking to new people. I love talking to new people.”

“A vow of silence...maybe I’ll join the silent sisters. That would get people to leave me well alone.”

“You sound a bit like my father in that respect, he’s not a very chatty man. He enjoys quiet.”

“Yeah?”

“He still thinks being sociable is worth the strain. ‘Know the ones who follow you, and let them know you. Don’t ask your men to die for a stranger.’”

“...He says that?”

Arya nodded “Ever since I was a little girl I loved nothing more than to sit at my fathers table. There was always an extra chair, and every day someone different would fill it. Lesser lords, Ser Rodrik, Ser Jory, my Septa, the Septon, old Nan before she passed away. She would sit there and tell him stories.”

Gendry smiled. 

“What are you grinning about?”

“Nothing, he just sounds like a good man.”

“He is.”

“I don’t oft’ hear stories about some high lord who cares for the opinion of anyone lesser than himself.”

“Is that why you steal their horses then?” she asked him playfully.

“Yeah. That and they have horses to steal.”

“How did I get to be Ser Gendry. Who do you serve?”

“The Brotherhood.”

“Like...the Kingswood Brotherhood?”

He nodded.

“But they aren't even around anymore.”

“We’ve made a come back.”

“Huh.”

“I don’t know to much about what’s going on up here in the north, but in the south things are-”  
“-Yeah I know,” Arya nodded “My father was almost kings hand during King Robert’s reign. The entire country at war is just would be the icing on the cake. I’m glad we left well alone while we had the chance.”

“And your sister?”

She shook her head “My sister stays in High Garden, and the fighting stays off her doorstep that’s part of the deal. Anyway, tell me more about this new Kingswood Brotherhood.”

“Well you know Thoros of Myr?”

“Thoros of Myr is an outlaw now? Thoros of Mry who charged into the trident with his flaming sword? My father told me that story a hundred times.”

“It’s awful for the sword, makes the metal so breakable. Stupid theatrics it all it is.”

“Well then you know what you have to steal for him?”

“What’s that?”

“Valyrian steel.”

“Valyrian steel...Valyrian steel would hold it’s own under fire, it’s forged at impossible heat.”

Arya nodded.


	4. Chapter 4

One night Arya and Gendry set up camp near a brook where the horses could drink, and found just enough wood in the sparse woods nearby to build a good fire. Arya was fortunate enough to catch a fish from the brook on needle, though she might have done better with a gig. It was something fresh too go with their old previsions anyhow.

“What’s that there?” Gendry said pointing to what you could see of the scar on her shoulder. 

“Would you believe it goes all the way down to my hip?”

“Seven hells! How’d that happen?”

“I don’t like to talk about it.”

“I’ve got a good one here,” Gendry said lifting his shirt up, the scar went across his belly “Got caught stealing some grain off the Lannister supply lines for a village in the Reach.”

“Ouch,” she replied “No too surprised though, I don’t imagine you’re a very good thief.”

“I’m a great thief!” 

“You, my friend, are loud!”

He huffed “Am not.”

“You talk loud, you walk loud, you even breath loud. You need to learn to be quiet and light on your feet.”

“What’s some lords daughter know about stealing?”

“I know about not being seen! Swift as a deer, quiet as a shadow. That’s what water dancers do.”

“You can’t be quiet as a shadow, a shadow isn’t even...it’s not really even there, it’s just...what is a shadow?

“Okay,” Arya said sitting up “I propose a game. It’s a bit like hide and go seek. Alright, so you keep your eyes closed and try to find me in the dark just by listening. Then I’ll do the same and try to find you.”

“Alright, you’re on.”

They played several rounds. Gendry could never find her. It was made all the more easy by the fact he could hardly walk.

He was getting better now, she moved her hands through the air blindly unsure of where he was. 

“You’re a fast learner,” she said “Did you leave your crutch behind? I can’t hear it?”

No response came.

Arya thought she heard breathing near her left, and was about to turn when suddenly he grabbed her shoulder and shouted “Boo!”

She shrieked surprised.

“I got you!”

“I did hear you coming!” she told him “I just didn’t expect you to yell!”

On his turn she couldn't help but laugh at him hobbling around with his crutch chasing shadows and never coming anywhere near her. Her laughter would give her away, but she would be moved long before he could find her. 

“Okay that’s enough time for you looking! You nearly walked into the fire like three times! Are you immune to heat as well as deaf?”

He sighed “Well I grew up in a forge so no, heat doesn't phase me. Fine, it’s your turn.”

Arya closed her eyes once again and heard only the crickets and the crackle of the fire, and the occasional soft thump of Gendry’s crutch stepping on the ground, his feet scraping the dirt. She moved through that space with her bare feet on the grass trying not to breath until she was sure he was standing right in front of her. 

Before she had a chance to lay a hand on him and open her eyes she felt his arm slip around her waist and pull her to him.

Arya did open her eyes then, he was smiling, pleased with himself it seemed. 

“Did you know I was there that time?”

She smiled “Yeah, ‘corse I did.”

He leaned his forehead to hers grinning like an idiot, and Arya tilted her head forward and kissed him, slipping her arms over his shoulders and resting the one wrist on the other.

Gendry leaned away a bit and inquired “Should we not be doing this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well I mean, you’re are lord’s daughter and you’re getting married and-”

She stepped away from him so that they quit touching completely “-Okay so let me get this straight, I'm a lord’s daughter and so so I shouldn't kiss you because...my father wouldn't approve? I’m getting married, and so you shouldn't kiss me because Jojen wouldn't like it? What about me then? What about what I do and don’t want?”

“I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant you’re a lady and I’m not anybody...and you have someone else, someone you’re meant to marry.”

“I’m not marrying any lord!” she decided and declared all at once “I’m not marrying anyone. I’d sooner throw myself off The Wall!” 

“So you don’t love him?”

“No I don’t love him! I hardly know him! I mean I slept with him-”

“-You slept with him? Is that...normal for when nobles get engaged?”

She shrugged “Probably not. I just wanted to check, I thought I might like him better if I did. But no, I’m still sick at the thought of it...Are you alright?”

Gendry had an odd look on his face “No I’m fine. I just feel at a disadvantage all of the sudden.”

Arya sighed and sat down in the wet grass “You know what, you’re right. This is stupid. I got a boy like you killed once. You know that?”

Gendry didn’t say anything in response.

“When I was a little girl,” she confessed “My father was to be old King Roberts Hand, and we went south…” she lowered her voice “Stopped at an Inn in the trident. Jon got me this sword-” she pulled needle part way out of the sheath and put it back “I was eager to learn, so me and my friend Mycah were playing sticks, ran into my sister and Joffrey. He was just a prince then, dumb and cruel as ever he was. So Joffrey decides, he doesn't his lady’s sister playing knights with a butcher's boy. I didn’t want him to hurt my friend so I whacked him over the head with my stick - Mycah runs off and Joffrey takes his very real sword and cuts me open hip to shoulder. I had a direwolf then who dragged me off into the woods. When I woke up she was gone and they’d found Mycah first. Joffrey told them lies, when they found me cut half way open it was clear what he’d done. He was a liar and it was too late. Mycah was dead. I was bled out so much I nearly died too. When I got better we all went home...and I have made myself miserable ever since.”

“What do you mean?”

Arya didn’t feel much like talking about it anymore “I’m going to try and get some sleep.”

She retreated back to the camp.


	5. Chapter 5

After another few days of riding they came to Hillwynd. It was a good sized village, almost a town in it’s own right between the Neck and Winterfell where the plains began to turn to foothills. They stayed their, perhaps for what was longer than necessary. No one else on the road had any idea who she was, or where Arya Stark could be. She drank and gambled and worked in a tavern, which also rented them a room to stay in. 

Gendry worked with the local smith and made horseshoes and nails, apparently a trade he had given up at seventeen or so in favor of wielding a sword and protecting the small folk in ways highlords never bothered too. That was what the new Kingswood Brotherhood did. Apparently however, they weren't any ragtag group of hillbillies but primarily made up of seasoned men, deserters. 

“Some of us are the best in Westeros,” he told her at the tavern one night “Not me obviously, but these men used to compete in Tournaments.”

“My father would love to hear about this sort of thing, he’d never believe it but he’d be fond of the story. If he did believe it he's just lop your head off.”

He laughed at that “You know the more I hear about your father the more I like him.”

A tipsy patron asked her why she was giving Gendry so much attention and none to him. He did not back down when she slammed a dagger down into the table in between them, and instead retreated when Gendry told him too. 

“You see? No respect for me as my own person. It makes me so angry I could spit venom.”

“So when are we going to start moving north again?” Gendry asked for the first time in two days. They’d been waiting around for three.

“Well, hows your leg? I just don’t want to strain you anymore than I already have. What if you never stop limping.”

He shrugged “It’s fine now. I don’t even need the crutch anymore.”

“Alright,” she said with a sigh “I guess it’s time to go. I’ll pack things up when I get back to the room.”

After work Arya did what she said she’d do. She gathered up their things and got them ready to go. She sat on the steps that ran up the back of the building leading from what had been their room to the ground. 

She caught sight of Gendry coming up the steps. 

“You ready to go?”

He did answer until he was all the way up the steps and sat down next to her “Yeah I’ve got the horses ready, got you these.”

he passes her an odd collection of wildflowers.

She laughed “You are ridiculous.”

“Typical...save your life, I get insulted, bring you flowers, I get insulted.”

“No they are lovely,” Arya said pointing to a purple flower in the mix “It’s only that these here, are poisonous.”

“Oh you have got to be kidding,” he wiped his hands on his trousers. 

“It’s a good job I have on riding gloves. Otherwise I’d break out in a horrible rash across my hands.”

He sighed.

“Now that you’re leg is better, I’d reckon one more night of riding?”

He nodded “Yeah, a long night.”

She handed him one of her impractical shoes, lined with grey fur.

“What’s this for?”

“That’s your payment. Ten gold dragons.”

“This is a shoe.”

Arya reached into the shoe and tore up some of the silk inside. Glued underneath were ten gold dragons for emergencies.

“Makes them hell to walk in. There's no way my father would give you ten dragons. Fifty stags tops is what you would have gotten. It occurs to me I never asked why you were in the neck though.”

“I am up here, to gather information.”

“Oh you are the wrong man for the job.”

“There's trouble coming up north.”

Arya scoffed “It won't make it past the Greywater.”

“I think it means to sail right around it. Some of the southerners have hopped into bed with the squids.”

“Ironmen.”

“Exactly. I’m meant to have a look around, see if they need a few good men north of the Kingswood.”

“My father is Warden in the north. He wouldn't let anyone suffer.”

“I hope you’re right about that. I reckon we should get moving then.”

They rode through the night and the early morning fog until dawn. She rode into the yard and shouted that she was home. Sir Rodrik was the first to greet her, and informed her that Jory did indeed make it home. Sansa came to the yard as well and shook her and asked why she had not just come to Barrowton like Ser Jory told her too.

“I didn’t know if they’re would be another raiding party their by the time I’d woken up.”

Sansa shook her head “No we stayed until morning. I wanted to stay longer and wait for you.”

Jon was home recruiting from castle black as well and she jumped into his arms and held him tight and asked if he was staying for Robb’s wedding. 

After that her family came out all at once in droves. Robb, Rickon, Bran and Hodor, Theon, Nan, all her uncles as well for the wedding (except Benjen who was with jon), mother and father.

Her mother wasn’t at all bothered with the state of her hair for once, but she figured after being missing for almost a week messy hair was to be expected. 

Her father hugged her and didn’t say a word until asked her the very same question Sansa had. 

And Arya had a wonder then if she would have gone to Barrowton even if it wasn’t on the Saltspear. She didn’t say it aloud, but she didn’t think she was quite ready to go home. 

“Who’s this then?” Her father asked after Gendry, who had been standing awkwardly off to the side. 

“Gendry m’lord.”

“Gendry helped me get home,” she told him.

“Well then I’m grateful to you son. If there's anything you’d ask of me-”

“Oh I couldn't ask for nothing sir...except maybe a place in your forge. I won’t lie I could use the work.”

“You shall have it then, and always a place at my table.”

“What did you do that for?” she whispered to him harshly afterward “I already payed you. You don’t need work you damn liar.”

“What can I say? I’m a thief. Besides, what better place to hear news from around the north than at it’s wardens table.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just finished this at 4. I'll come back to fix a few things later, like Sansa's part.

The days went on and Sir Gendry of Hollow Hill melded in with the winterfell staff just as if he was no bandit from the south, or so Gendry would have told you. Arya had to disagree. 

She did not know how long it had been since he really WAS your everyday armorers apprentice but Arya figured it was over this time that he had (as Sansa put it anyway) “forgotten himself.” What Sansa really meant, was that he forgot his place - frequently. He earned himself many an odd glance from her father, for his frankness she assumed. Mikken at first found him amusing, but now could not hardly stand him.

Jon Snow hadn’t minded him too much, until one day in the armory Gendry who had never been north of the wall got into it with Jon, who had never been south of the neck. They both asserted to one another that the other had no idea what they themselves had seen.

It was clear that Gendry’s good standing on the basis of bringing Arya home could not hold up to his behavior forever. 

“I just can’t understand it,” she told Sansa as they were walking to the yard where they were to greet Jeyne Westerling “He’s so stupid it’s actually stunning. It’s like he wants to get the boot.”

“Do you want him gone?” Sansa asked. 

Arya rolled her eyes “Well no.”

“I shouldn't think so. I do not like that Man but I am grateful to him he brought you home. I thought you were dead for sure, or captured.”

“I did have a little part in bringing myself home. Don’t give him all the credit. It’s not as if he carried me, you know in fact part of the way up he hurt his leg and I was practically carrying him.”

“Is that so?” Sansa asked.

Arya had been trying not to tell Sansa too much, and Sansa could not stand it. She loved a good story “Yeah. I mean, there’s nothing much to tell really. We came north.”

“You spent all that time on the kingsroad posed as a commoner and you don’t have any stories to share? The world must be a dull place.”

Later Arya was walking on the grounds with a book her father had given her as a coming home present, a book of wild flowers and how to identify the harmless ones from the poisonous. She would find a flower, try and identify it and if it was safe she would pluck it up and use it to mark that page where it belonged.

“Is that what high born ladies do in their free time?” She heard Gendry ask with what seemed to be legitimate curiosity rather than contempt for once. 

“You could do with reading up on this sort of thing. How’s your rash?”

He looked around embarrassed, but no one was in earshot “It’s gone. It’s been gone.”

“What are you doing?” she asked following. 

He held up the parcel he was carrying “Meant to take this to the gatehouse.”

“Probably nothing but a way for Mikken to get you out of his forge really.”

“You’re probably right.”

“So do you want to stay and hear your northern news at the wardens table, or do you want to get thrown out?”

Gendry shrugged “I’ll be more careful.”

“You know what you're doing,” she told him “You may be stupid but you’re cleverer than this. You could hold your tongue if you wanted. Why aren’t you?”

He shrugged again. 

“Would you just spill it. I haven’t told anyone you’re a big fat horse thief. Tell me.”

“I just hadn't noticed I was being a thorn in everyone’s side.”

“Liar.”

“Would you just go on and play with your flower book?”

“What, we’re just talking? It’s not like we’ve never talked before.”

He ignored her now. 

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Acting differently. It’s like you aren’t even...”

“Aren’t even what?”

He stopped walking now “I work in your forge right now. That’s it. What am I to you?”

“We’re friends,” Arya said solidly. 

“Really?” he said keeping up walking “People like you and people like me can’t be friends, not really.” 

“Well it sure used to seem like we were friends.”

“This is the first time I’ve even seen you in days. What does that tell you?”

She rolled her eyes and said sullenly “That a lady has no place in a forge...Listen, let’s you and me go riding tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to get in trouble, going where I’m not meant to be going with who I’m not meant to be gone with.”

“It wouldn't seem so strange you coming along to look after me if you were one of my fathers men. Why go back to being a craftsman if you’re a soldier?”

“I don’t want to have to kill anyone for your father. It’s better I’m smithing.”

“Their isn’t much fuss get’s kicked up here...Listen if I could sort it so you wouldn't have to kill anyone for my father,” they came up under the arch of the gatehouse “And you could hear all about what’s going on in the north, get everywhere I have access too in the castle, would that help?”

He stopped in front of the door into the gatehouse “You could do that?”

“Yeah, easy. What are friends for?”


End file.
